Hotel keys, sugar packets and other confessions

We like to stay at a particular hotel chain which uses plastic keys/card to get into its rooms. That's not the reason we like to stay there. It just happens to be what the chain uses.

Rather, we adopted this hotel chain for several reasons — it was the trend-setter in having more than a stale doughnut and lukewarm coffee for breakfast; its rooms are relatively comfortable with a 100-percent guarantee (which we've evoked on several occasions when a room did not meet our satisfaction — i.e., like the time some undergarments were left in the room from a previous guest or we woke up with backaches from an unacceptably soft bed). Plus, it gives points for not only the hotel, earning us free nights, but also air points with our favorite airline. I should have put that in the past tense . . . the hotel chain did.

The chain and airline are no longer seeing each other, having broken up last year, so we don't get the points anymore and . . . the plastic keys have changed.

For years, the hotel chain's keys just listed the state in which the hotel was located — bluish card, hotel logos, a small scene from nature and the words: "Welcome to whatever state."

Typically, when Vonnie is with me on a trip, they'd give us two keys and, here's the crime, I'd take one to leave at another of its hotels in another state. I could just see the desk help looking at this key from another state and saying, "How did that get here?"

Of course, I'd be long gone by then. Sort of like tying a bottle to a door knob, letting it knock and then taking off. "Who keeps knocking at our door?" the homeowner asks.

Sophomoric pranks — that's all it is. No one gets hurt. They're not sending me to the Grey-Bar-Hotel (which has no plastic keys) if I get caught. Ultimately, the hotel chain gets the key back, although I do believe I have at least one still in my wallet.

Interesting how we can justify things. Small items that are taken, like extra sugar packs from the diner or creamers from the coffee shop, are no big deal. Pencils and pens, a few file folders and paper from work — it just happens. Have someone come into your house and pick up a few things and maybe our attitude changes.

On any level, stealing is wrong and I need to take back those keys.

But, you do remember the innocent pranks we did as youngsters and all the laughter and fun that went with it? It was tomfoolery for sure. Wisdom has now replaced foolishness. That's good, right? Well, maybe not.

Laughter is good for the soul; proven to be healthy according to medical science. The wisdom writer wrote: "A merry heart does good like medicine." Nobody wants to be around a grouch. We should laugh more. We should help others laugh more.

Not sure that anyone was laughing when I changed the keys, but there was always a wry smile on my face when I did. I was laughing on the inside and that's a good thing, right?